Mosley Tastes First Pro Loss

Shane Mosley had never felt the pain of defeat, never known the mind-numbing sensation of being knocked down, never experienced the warmth of his own blood running down his face in the ring.

But Saturday night, he felt all that and more as Vernon Forrest pulled off a stunning upset by winning a unanimous, overwhelming decision over the man generally considered the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.

From the second round on, Mosley wasn’t even the best fighter in the ring at the Theater at Madison Square Garden as Forrest knocked him down twice, battered him from ring post to ring post and blasted away at his body in front of a shocked crowd of 5,323.

“If he is the best boxer in the world,” Forrest said, “the Michael Jordan of basketball, and I beat him, does that make me the Michael Jordan of basketball?”

It certainly makes Forrest (34-0, 26 knockouts) the World Boxing Council welterweight champion, the title Mosley (38-1, 35) had won from Oscar De La Hoya in June of 2000.

Judge Tom Kazmarek scored the fight 115-110, Melvina Lathan had it 117-108 and Julie Lederman scored it 118-108.

The Times had Forrest winning 116-110.

“He was holding a lot,” Mosley said. “ I think it was a closer fight.”

The oddsmakers didn’t think it was going to be a close fight. They had made Mosley a 51/2-1 favorite, the kind of odds usually reserved for mismatches.

They obviously didn’t take into account what happened a decade ago. In 1992, Mosley and Forrest met in the light-welterweight semifinals of the 1992 U.S. Olympic trials. Forrest won.

Ten years obviously didn’t make a difference.

The oldest cliche in boxing is that styles make fights. But it’s also the truest. Mosley may have risen to the top of the boxing world because of his blazing speed and devastating punching power, but he couldn’t handle Forrest’s right hand or overall strength any more than he could in 1992.

“It’s very ironic that I lost to the same man who beat me the last time I lost,” Mosley said

Or maybe it was just the head butt.

Mosley won the first round in the manner everyone had expected, his speed and footwork being the difference.

In the second round, the two fighters banged heads.

“It wasn’t intentional,” Forrest said. “We both threw our right hands at the same time and our heads clashed.”

Forrest grabbed his forehead, apparently injured worse than Mosley.

But Mosley had suffered a narrow cut above his left eyebrow and blood began rolling down his face.

“I felt myself get dazed like a hard punch,” he later admitted. “It affected me a little bit.”

More than a little bit.

Mosley quickly went down from a right hand.

“I was still dazed,” Mosley said. “He hit me. I was like, ‘Wow, he hit me? I’m going down.’ My legs were rubbery.”

Mosley staggered to his feet, stumbled all over the ring, tried to hold on to Forrest, but went down a second time in the closing seconds of the round from another right hand.

Somehow Mosley managed to get to his feet as the bell sounded ending the round.

Mosley spent the rest of the evening trying to recover but he was never the same. Those speedy legs were shaky. Those quick reflexes were dulled. The vast array of punches were off the mark.

But he never wavered, even when Forrest trapped him on the ropes and pounded away at his body.

“That really hurt,” Mosley said. “My will and pride would not let go me go down. It was the hardest I’ve ever been hit in my career.”

When it was over, Forrest, who promised Mosley a rematch, did his best Muhammad Ali impersonation, hanging over the ropes, pointing at press row and yelling, “I told you so. I told you so.”

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In the semi-main event, Arturo Gatti (34-5, 28) stopped Terronn Millet (26-3-1, 19) at 2:23 of the fourth round of a scheduled 10-round junior welterweight match.